Jealousy Dungeon — Part 1
An hour had already passed since I'd entered the dungeon.
After weaving every which way through its halls to stay ahead of Yukiko's pursuit, I'd managed to piece together a few facts.
First: this ancient dungeon had no monsters living in it.
I'd covered a considerable stretch of ground and hadn't crossed paths with anyone—or anything—except Yukiko. I still hadn't made it down to the lower floors, so it was too early to call it certain. But at the very least, the first basement level was relatively safe… if you didn't count the knife-wielding Yukiko charging after me.
Second: no monsters, but traps? Those were everywhere.
Lethal elemental snares—fireballs, lightning arrows, stone axes, wind spears, and the rest—went without saying. There were also plenty of the crippling kind: paralysis, sleep, hallucination, freeze. The noise traps were the worst of the lot. The instant you stepped on one, Yukiko came running.
Third: the dungeon was packed with locked doors, and the locking mechanism required a spoken password.
Hints for those passwords were either lying around nearby or tucked away inside specific rooms. The problem was that cracking one password only ever got you a hint for the next lock. Until every door was open, it was an endless loop of find the hint, open the door, run for your life.
Fourth: each locked room held a single sheet of paper that looked like something Yukiko had written.
They seemed to be a journal chronicling how she'd ended up like this, but I hadn't been able to examine them closely. Every time I tried to read properly, Yukiko would show up. So I'd been diligently collecting them one by one, planning to go through them all at once later.
I wonder if we'll even get a proper chance to read them.
Plenty of places to hide. I'll just hole up somewhere and take my sweet time.
Every room came equipped with hiding spots—wardrobes, oak barrels, beds. For someone whose field of vision was already limited by a doll outfit, that was a genuine blessing.
Only problem is, this whole place feels like a horror game someone put together on purpose.
For all I knew, it was the handiwork of the ancient demon nesting in the dungeon's deepest reaches. To find out, I picked up a key that had been stashed in the corner of a room.
That's the last one.
So is this finally the end of this wretched chase?
Hard to say. I wouldn't put it past that crazy Snow Woman to follow me all the way down.
How troublesome. If it weren't for this doll outfit, I could have managed somehow…
If I had to fight an ancient demon in this state, I'd die for nothing. The Lust Dungeon had at least let me use a sword. Here, I couldn't use a thing. The doll outfit was too tough for ordinary blades to cut, which meant I needed some other way to deal with Yukiko.
Ah—she's coming!
Speak of the devil…!
Footsteps. Yukiko's, drawing closer from the next room over. I slipped carefully into a nearby wardrobe, making sure not to raise a sound.
"…I felt Papa's presence, but he's not here either~?"
I clamped a hand over my mouth and nose, holding even my breathing still. Someone of her caliber could catch the sound of a person drawing air.
"Papa, where are you? Don't leave Yukiko all alone…"
Her voice carried the lonely ache of a lost child left behind on a street corner. Watching her search for a father who'd already left this world, something in my chest started to crack. What had that child ever done to deserve a world that stole her parents and drove her into a contract with a demon? I could only click my tongue at the cruelty of it.
"Yukiko has so many things she wants to do with Papa. Eat together, take baths together, sleep together…"
The thought crossed my mind that if I just held her close and treated her warmly, maybe she'd be all right. She wasn't my real daughter, but if I looked after her properly, maybe she'd get better. A fragile little hope took root.
"Kihi! And more than anything—I want to dye Papa's pure white body red! With Papa's blood…!"
That hope died on the spot. I stayed perfectly still and prayed, with everything I had, that she would just leave.
I had the nightmare again today.
It was the same as always—the day the village burned red. A creature so vast it blotted out the moon in the sky, and beneath it people screaming, scattering in every direction. Father gathered the others and went out to fight. Mother held my hand tight and ran.
We didn't get far. A burning pillar came down on top of her. I can still see her waving me on, telling me to keep running. That day I left both of them behind and fled, pulled along by a neighbor's hand.
I want so badly to forget it. But the memory clings to me to the end, and it will not let me go.
My new family was kind to me.
They took in a child who had lost her parents, treated her warmly, held her close. But no matter how gently they treated me, they and I were strangers in the end. I could see it—the way they looked at their blood family was different from the way they looked at me.
Maybe I'm the one who's twisted. But if so, that twistedness is simply my filthy nature.
In the end, I left the new house and the new family behind.
Their kindness only stirred up a desire in me to take what they had. I knew it was wrong, and still I wanted to push my pain onto someone else and make their happiness mine. The repeating nightmares and the warped delusions gnawed away at my mind, bit by bit. If I stayed, I might have said something unforgivable—done something unforgivable—to them.
That fear is what drove me out, running. Outside, without their warmth, the cold cut to the bone. But that was fine. I am a cursed Snow Woman, after all.
The place I settled was an abandoned mansion on a hill outside the village.
With no master, it was shabby, and not a single corner of it was whole. And yet, somehow, it put me at ease. The mansion itself felt like it was in the same position I was. It sat far enough from the village that I almost never had to deal with anyone else.
Yes. This would be my nest.
I decided my grave would be in the front yard.
The nightmares continued, but I was no longer afraid. I didn't have to envy anyone. Telling myself that, I cleaned the mansion and set about repairing it. Doing every dirty job with a frail body was hard, but it felt worthwhile.
That sense of worth didn't last long.
The moment I went down to the village for supplies, a fierce pain struck through my head. A family was walking the street hand in hand, smiling as if the world were kind. My former family, looking happy.
I'd left of my own accord, but some part of me had hoped they might worry, just a little. They were living as if I had never existed at all. It's strange. I was the one who asked them to forget me—so why does it hurt this much?
I only wanted to be happy too…
I don't really understand what this feeling is. I broke down crying right there in the street, and went home.
Everything in the world felt unjust. I knew I was the one in the wrong, and still I couldn't master the feeling. Why did I alone have to be this miserable? Children my age were living happily with their families—so why only me…
Only after I had sobbed myself hoarse on that musty bed did I understand. The root of all of it was the Red Dragon that had taken my family. The one that stole my happiness, gave me the nightmares, and was eating away at my mind…!
I cradled revenge in my heart.
Knowledge is power.
That was one of the few pieces of advice Father ever gave me, a very long time ago. To beat the Red Dragon I needed strength, so I read every book in the study I could get my hands on. The mansion's previous owner must have been a renowned mage—there were shelves full of texts on magic. I read them believing they would help me. There was one critical problem.
I had no mana.
A Snow Woman's body cannot hold mana. I learned that from Granny Hana, the oldest person in the village. Everything I had worked so hard to learn turned worthless overnight, and I fell into despair all over again. Then how was I supposed to defeat a dragon? If no method on earth could win—did I even have a reason to keep living?
I was reading in the study, same as always. The moment I reached for a book that happened to fall under my hand, the bookshelf shifted, and a new space opened up. A basement I had never once seen, for all the times I had walked every corner of the mansion. I was afraid, and curious in equal measure, so I stepped through.
The basement was far larger and cleaner than I had imagined—as if someone were living there. Thinking there might be another person besides me, I went deeper in. And there I met the benefactor who would change my fate.
Her name was Levi…
She told me she and I shared a great deal in common, and made me a tempting offer. In exchange for granting me vast knowledge and a wellspring of mana…
At last. I had found it—the one path that could defeat the Red Dragon. I accepted her proposal. As for the price…
It didn't matter. If it meant my revenge, I was prepared to do anything.
From the middle onward, the important parts are completely blacked out. Feels like someone deliberately hid the information.
Still—I know for certain what this dungeon is, and who its master is.
Bern, who had been reading Yukiko's journal from inside the wardrobe, was running a short reconstruction of events from everything he'd covered so far.
You deduced all that from two letters of a name?
Yep. The demon's name is Leviathan. And this place is the dungeon that governs Jealousy among the Seven Deadly Sins.
Creeeak—!
The wardrobe door swung open the instant Bern reached that conclusion. His eyes lifted from the journal pages toward the outside.
Yukiko stood there, smiling sweetly, a kitchen knife hidden behind her back.
"Papa, found you!"
"…So this time Papa counts to ten and comes looking, right?"
"Not before you take your punishment!"
Yukiko seized Bern's arm, dragged him down onto the floor, and straddled his stomach. Her face was flushed; her breathing came rough and uneven. Even at a glance, she was already worked up.
"Kid, just so we're clear—Papa's not into incest."
"You don't have to worry about that. I'm only going to punish a bad Papa who won't listen!"
Yukiko drove the kitchen knife deep into Bern's chest, then pulled it free. Bright crimson blood clung to the blade. At the sight of it she began to tremble, then ran her tongue along the steel. The taste of blood sent a shudder through her, and she burst into mad laughter.
"Kyahahahaha!"
Thud—! Thud—! Thud—!
Laughing like she'd lost her mind, Yukiko stabbed Bern's body at random.
Contractor!!
She didn't aim for vital points so much as punch holes wherever the blade landed. After stabbing him well over a hundred times, looking happier with every thrust, she drove the knife into his heart one last time and shuddered through a climax.
"Haa…! Haa…! Papa♡"
She slumped against the unresponsive corpse, savoring the afterglow. Only for a moment. Then she pulled away from Bern and tilted her head.
"Papa? Where did you go?"
She had just killed him herself, and now she was looking for her father all over again. If there had been any doubt left about how far gone she was, that erased it. Leaving the body where it lay, she walked out of the room.
"I have to find Papa…"
Even her exit was pure derangement.
…Weirdly enough, that was pretty manageable?
Meanwhile, the man who had just been butchered by a Snow Woman's ice kitchen knife was perfectly fine. An ordinary person would have been dead twenty stabs in. Bern was casually still alive.
Didn't think the Troll's Elixir Hades gave me would work this well.
It probably synergized with the Fruit of the World Tree you ate the other day and produced this absurd regeneration.
Holy crap. This is insane!
The Troll's Elixir and the Fruit of the World Tree. Having consumed two national-treasure-grade items without quite realizing what he'd done, Bern had become a body that did not die easily. Stab wounds sealed themselves in an instant. Nothing short of taking his head or obliterating him outright would put him down. Even the pain had been compressed to a fraction of a second—while the knife was going in, all he'd felt was the prick of a needle.
If I'd known, I would've just let her catch me from the start.
Seems I fretted for nothing and only made things harder on us.
Oh right—you called out for me in the middle of that, didn't you? "Contractor!" all desperate like that.
F-Forget that! Immediately!
Nah. Don't think I will.
Bern snickered in a way no one who'd just been carved up had any business snickering, still grinning as he reached for the doorknob and pulled.
On the other side of the door, Yukiko was smiling sweetly.
"Papa, found you!"
Bern was of the firm opinion that a repeat event was really asking too much.